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Gas
Pains
August 30, 2001
by
Kurt Kurowski
During last year's presidential campaign, Vice-President
Al Gore told us that Bush was "of, by and for Big Oil." Given
the evidence, it appears Mr. Gore had tapped into a rich vein
of truth. No wonder the Bush campaign spent so much time,
energy and cash in its attempt to paint Mr. Gore as a liar.
We now have the oil-rigged Bush administration continuing
its attempts to bolster a backward energy policy even as it
stifles progress by decrying conservation and cutting funds
for alternative energy technology. We have oil millionaire
Vice-President Dick Cheney, as of this writing, continuing
his attempts to stonewall on releasing information about secret
meetings regarding energy policy at the White House.
We have endured a number of scattershot events that have
been used to convince us of an energy crisis that never materialized,
but that created a crisis of credibility for Bush. Every excuse
for high prices given by Bush-Cheney and the press members
that support them has been proven unfounded with every rapid
price-drop.
We were told high prices were due to low refining capacity,
shortages, environmental regulations, numerous broken pipelines,
and the difficulty in switching between different formulas,
but let's face it, prices have plunged thrice and we had no
new refineries, no new domestic drilling had occurred, and
we had no "gas lines" at stations
Environmental regulations still consistently added only 10
to 25 cents per gallon, there was a dearth of newspaper stories
on all these broken pipelines that we are nevertheless told
are safe, and if the industry is so inept it cannot coordinate
different fuels, perhaps local governments should relieve
them of the burden by taking over the process.
Now the Bush Administration may have a fool-proof reason
for prices that are once again climbing, as OPEC raised the
price per barrel about two weeks ago.
I should amend that by saying almost foolproof.
During the 2000 campaign Mr. Bush, at the first round of
gas price hikes, told us that if he were (then) President
Clinton he would get on the phone with OPEC and talk those
prices down. So I urge citizens concerned about rising prices
to contact the White House and request Mr. Bush do just that.
Or was his statement just another in a consistently growing
list of broken campaign promises?
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